


Time is Like a Wave (That Washes All the Pain Away)

by armchairpsychologist



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Shuffle Challenge, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 11:41:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8978236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armchairpsychologist/pseuds/armchairpsychologist
Summary: Mulan realises she has to leave.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Tried an ipod shuffle challenge a while back where you had to write a fic over the course of a random song. Come Down by White Lies played and SleepingWarrior leapt immediately to mind. I think it’s because I’m still disappointed. Mulan had better get her Happily Ever After.

She smiles, its radiance drawing an instinctual response from yourself, the reaction as natural as breathing. 

_“I’m pregnant.”_

You hear the words ricochet around the confines of your head like an arrow shot from a bow. The smile freezes, cracks, but holds, by a tenuous thread. Your eyes though, your eyes cannot lie as hope bleeds its last within their depths.

It’s over.

She is lost to you, because she was never yours to find. There is no red string of fate connecting your spirits, tethering you together against all the odds. Only the beat of your heart calling out to hers, and falling on deaf ears.

But you keep your smile, you hug her, you let her think you are so happy for her.

Because that’s what love does.

It wrenches your feelings away and tethers them inexorably to another. Your love is hers. Her happiness is your own. You desire that above all else. Because True Love (or perhaps, love) is selfless. 

But it doesn’t stop you feeling pain. 

And that’s when you see it; your future. It stretches before you like a curse. She will expect you to be happy, to stay, to protect. You will, because the thought of parting from her is like trying to imagine living in a world without light. You will watch her happiness with her family as they laugh and grow and that happiness will be your own. Because you love her. But you will die a little inside every day, choking on their pure joy until, eventually, your love sours from the bitterness and pain and curdles into hatred. 

Your love is a prison. A curse.

You understand all this in a single moment…and your heart breaks.

That is why you walk away from her. You want to free the both of you from the chains of your love. Even if it means you must walk alone in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> _Felt love last night for the first time in a long time._   
>  _Feels like coming home to stay._   
>  _Like falling in the sea when it’s too hot in the sun._   
>  _Made things so much worse today._   
>  _I know you said you’ll miss me._   
>  _But I know that you won’t._   
>  _Because time is like a wave that washes all the pain away, when you come down._   
>  _I know I said I’d see you._   
>  _When it gets to New Year._   
>  _But now that all the rains stopped falling,_   
>  _All I think is getting out of here._
> 
> ~ Come Down (White Lies)


End file.
